Derry, Maine
by LemonySnicket-II
Summary: A prequel to Stephen King's IT. This chronicles how the horror first came into the small Maine town and how five kids thought they had beaten it for good. R&R Please!
1. Part One-The Storm

Derry,Maine  
  
  
  
Part One-   
The Storm  
  
The air was cool and moist that Winter day. It was one of those days when you feel so at peace with everything. Jack Collins walked down Main Street as he fumbled with the change in coat. He was amazed at how quickly he had spent the three dollars that his grandmother sent him for his 11th birthday. God bless the old woman. With that money he had bought 7 new comic books, 2 packs of gum, and a few packs of baseball cards and to top that off, he still had a nice amount of change left over. Yeah, he loved birthdays, especially when his grandmother spoiled him like this. Jack continued to walk down the street when he noticed the sky darken overhead. He knew it meant rain. Rain was not a rare occurrence at all in Derry, Maine. In fact, it was known to flood at least once a month if not more. Jack hurried home before the first rain began to set in. He stood in the front room and as he hung his jacket on the brass stand, Jack heard thunder in the distance.  
* **  
Clay Porter sat in the living room of his home. He was reading the book "Tom Sawyer" by Mark Twain. He had a report due in three days and he had to spend double time trying to get it ready by the deadline. Clay knew better than not to turn in a book report for Miss Rose. He shuddered as the name entered his mind. Miss Rose was the strictest and most agonizing teacher to deal with in all of Derry Elementary. If you didn't do her assignment you got a lashing with her tongue and with her paddle. He had once heard older kids say that she called it "Old Reliable". Clay wouldn't have doubted it for a second. He tried not to think of her and concentrate on his book but then Clay heard the thunder. It rumbled loud and clear. It was so fierce it made the dishes in his mother's antique curio shake. Of course she ran to hold onto the old piece of furniture, so that not one piece of her finest china be scratched. "Heaven forbid that", Clay thought to himself with a laugh and then in the comfort of his living room Clay Porter finished the first page of his book.  
* **  
Delia Roberts was helping her mother prepare dinner when the rains began to pour. She looked up to the ceiling and then back to the large pan of soup boiling on the stovetop. Her mother put the biscuits in the oven and looked to Delia's father and said, "Looks like we're gonna have a storm tonight Harold."  
"Ayah." said Delia's father, "Heard on the radio there's supposed to be some fierce winds with it too. Might just blow the house to Oz. Right, darling?" He looked at Delia.  
"Right Papa." she said smiling as she continued to stir the soup on the stove. All of a sudden she felt a strong feeling of icy wind surround her. She shivered a little bit.  
"What's wrong Sweetheart?" her mother asked.  
"Oh Nothing", Delia replied as she stirred the soup and added a little bit of salt and pepper, "Just felt a little bit of a breeze, I s'pose." Delia continued to concentrate on the soup and then the rain began to pour making a fierce sound on the tin roof of her family's house.   
* **  
"Dear Lord", said Mrs. Irma Benson, " If we don't fix this darned leak the whole house'll float right out onto the river. She went to the closet and pulled out a steel bucket. She put it under the leak and the water dropped down into the bucket making a hollow PLINK sound. Mrs. Benson looked upstairs and called out, "Leonard Benson, if you don't get downstairs this moment and pick your dripping boots out of the doorway you won't be able to sit down for a week."  
"Be right there Ma!" Leonard said as he came down the stairs and picked up his wet goulashes. "Where do you s'pose I put 'em?"   
"Well, I guess you could just put 'em out on the front porch, the weather's so bad tonight nobody'd bother to steal anything tonight anyway."  
Leonard just stood there. "Are you waitin' for an invitation son? Go put your rain boots out on the porch, now!"  
"They're called goulashes Ma. Goulashes." Was what Leonard managed to get out before he went outside and then, from inside the house he could hear his mother reply, "I don't care what in the world you call the things just put 'em outside!"  
When Leonard got outside the wind blew so badly that he couldn't see. He threw his boots down on the porch and he tried to open his eyes. (Leonard already feared thunderstorms and having to go out in one wasn't his delight.) Leonard slowly opened his eyes and saw something unreal.   
  
  
It appeared to be two long extending arms with claws reaching out from the thunderstorm. The arms appeared to be reaching towards...him. He tried to get inside but he couldn't find the doorknob. His eyes were fixated on the arms reaching out to him. The fog from the storm surrounded the porch and Leonard felt as if though he were being squeezed to death. He couldn't breathe and an increasing amount of pressure was being put onto his ribcage. Leonard tried to scream for help, but he couldn't make a sound. He thought in his mind that he may be in his last moments so he began to recite the first line of the Lord's Prayer over and over to himself so that he focus on something else during his final moments...  
The Lord is my Shepherd I shall not want.  
The Lord is my Shepherd I shall not want.  
The Lord is my Shepherd I shall not want.  
Leonard could feel the forceful grip surrendering itself, and as it let looser and looser the faster and louder he said the Lord's prayer...  
The Lord is my Shepherd I shall not want.  
The Lord is my Shepherd I shall not want.  
The Lord is my Shepherd I shall not want.  
The Lord is my Shepherd I shall not want.  
Finally the grip let completely loose and Leonard broke free. He opened the door and ran inside. His mother came out of the kitchen wiping her hands on her apron, "What took you so long, I thought you'd been blown away!"  
But Leonard didn't reply, instead he ran upstairs to the bathroom and threw up. With every heave his ribs ached and he wanted to die. When he was finished he washed his face with cold water and went to his bed to lie down.  
* **  
Michael Kirpatrick's family was in a panic. They were trying to get the family dog from the water that was flooding their backyard. The dog tried his best to paddle but the wind proved too strong. Michael couldn't stand it anymore, he couldn't just let his only friend in the world die. He jumped into the water from the top step of his back porch. The water came up to his middle, (Michael was short for his age, and the fact that his back yard dipped down in the middle didn't help matters either), but Michael still treaded through the waters as he shielded his face from the strong winds.   
In what seemed to be in the blink of an eye a bolt of lightning hit a tree in the neighbor's back yard. A heavy limb from the tree flew over and knocked Michael down into the water. He couldn't free himself and his dog floated farther away towards the electric fence at the end of the yard. Michael knew once the dog got there, all hope for saving his friend would be lost.   
Michael tugged and pulled at the limb and still couldn't budge it. His father jumped down into the water and tried to help his son move the giant limb that pinned him to the ground. The wind began to blow harder and more powerfully than it had all night. It was almost enough to kill somebody. Michael kept his face down, but then he looked up to see his dog be carried away to the electric fence getting closer with each second.   
Finally, the limb let go and Michael's father ran through the water and safely secured his son and himself on the back porch. Michael tried to go back but his father stopped him. He knew that now it would be too dangerous. Michael looked in despair as the poor terrier was carried right into the barbed wire of the electric fence. All of a sudden a cry of excruciating pain exploded from the defenseless animal. It was most horrible thing that he had ever seen in his entire life. Michael watched as the animal began to smoke and steam like a piece of beef on a hot grill and with the wind blowing you could smell the dog being fried against the barbed wire. It was almost enough to make somebody sick. After a few moments it became too much to see. Michael buried his face in his fathers side. The family went inside and Michael ran to his room and cried himself to sleep.  
  
It rained the rest of the night. Harsh winds and hail destroyed some of the northern part of Derry and floods ran rapidly through the southern part of the city. The storm continued all throughout the next three days only stopping for minutes at a time, which was usually only long enough for people with leaky roofs to empty their water buckets before the rains set in again. Then after nearly half a week of pure rain and storms the skies of Derry, Maine became calmed, but though the skies of Derry were in peace again. Something had traveled in on the storm and it intended on staying a long time.   



	2. Part Two-Derry 1786

Part Two-  
Derry: 1786  
  
Clark Sinclair ran into a shelter of a nearby barn. He couldn't find any other place of shelter. Someone was following him. This person had lured him out of the safety of the Winter's End Festival that he had attended with his parents. He tried to remember what the figure looked like and now he remembered...it was a clown! It was the clown that was performing at the festival. Could he remember his name...Oh, he could feel it on the tip of his tongue. All of a sudden he remembered the name and he unthinkingly shouted it out loud, "Pennywise!"  
Out of the bails of hay behind him Clark heard somebody say, " Yes?"  
* **  
"Where's Clark?" Thomas Sinclair asked his wife Millie.  
" I don't know isn't he here?" She replied.  
" No. Nobody's seen him for the last half hour."  
Then both of them had a thought of pure terror surge throughout their minds. The thought was almost telepathic. It reminded Clark's parents of the recent murders of Derry children. These murders weren't normal though, these murders were horrible, brutal massacres. Children had been found with their heads ripped clear off their spine. Other's had been found with their legs forcefully bent behind the base of their neck while their arms were either broken or missing completely. The whole town had searched for the culprit but nobody had been found. Whoever it was, they were good and nobody debated that. This thought was what the Sinclairs's mind brought to their attention and for a second their heart stopped. They looked out the window and saw the barn on the hill had lights on. This was unusual because the Turner's never kept their barn lights on, especially when they were gone and tonight the Turner's were at the festival. Millie ran up to Mrs. Turner and tapped on the shoulder as she danced with her husband,  
"I'm sorry to bother you Mrs. Turner but did you leave the lights on in your barn?"  
Before Mrs. Tuner had time to answer an earsplitting scream, no not a scream but a shriek of terrorized pain sounded over the festival and everything was quiet. Mr. Sinclair didn't wait a second more he yelled, "Everybody run to the Turner's barn. I know where that baby killer is and he has Clark!   
  
  
The crowd went into a panic and people began to grab anything they could. People had lit torches and some of the men had their knives. The people stormed up to the barn. Mr. Turner opened the doors and there stood Phillip Peterson also known as Pennywise the dancing clown.   
* **  
  
Everybody knew he had gone mad since his wife died a few years back but even in his state of mind, even in his madness he insisted on being a children's clown. Although now he didn't bring joy to the children he frightened them, at first it was unintentional but after a while Pennywise found that he enjoyed seeing the children writhe in terror and it became his obsession. Then one day he totally lost all touch with reality and went into complete lunacy. That day was the day he began his menacing to Derry. He had even set the Johanson's barn on fire. A local artist named Christian Neel saw the whole thing and took out his sketchpad. He drew a picture of Pennywise in the exact likeness of the event. A clown dancing as he watched a family's barn burn to the ground, animals and all.  
After a few days the clown disappeared and everybody assumed that he had probably thrown himself into the river or set himself on fire and burned to death, but he hadn't he had found a hiding spot in the underground of Derry. The crazy man had dug himself a tunnel that began under the Derry Bridge and went through the ground for about half a mile. It took him three years and he always worked at night so that nobody would suspect anything. During the day he slept in his tunnel so nobody would find him. He wanted them to think he was dead. It was all part of his plan, to kill every single child in Derry one by one.   
In the beginning his plan worked. He would lure children to his tunnel with candy and balloons. He would entice them further by swinging on trees or lampposts and doing flips down the street. Once he lured the children into his tunnel he would slaughter them for his own personal pleasure. It was always bloody when he killed a child. After a while the tunnel began to smell like Iron from all the blood that was shed into the dirt.  
This continued on for a year and a half and then Pennywise was caught.  
* **  
  
  
  
  
  
  
The door of the barn slammed open and Mr. Turner couldn't believe what he saw. To begin with he saw Pennywise the clown, a person that the whole town thought was dead and then as he glanced towards the floor he almost fainted and felt his stomach come up in his throat. Mrs. Sinclair burst through the crowd and when she reached the barn door she screamed in horror as she looked down at her son.   
His small carcass was covered in blood and his clothes had been completely torn from his body. The body was extremely mangled and most of his intestines were outside of his skin.  
Then they noticed that somehow his small intestines had been pulled up through his throat and out of his mouth. His left eye was gone and his teeth had been pulled from his gums. They all lay in the cavity that was bored into his chest area. The heart came up through the skin and the teeth were all around it and his eye rested in one of the broke valve openings.   
Clark's mother fainted and most of the other women did too. The men went into a spree of vomiting. Nobody could help it...the site was just too grotesque for human eyes. Mr. Sinclair regained some composure from his heaving and looked at the clown in the eyes. When he did he noticed that they weren't human, it was like he was staring into the devil's eyes. If he wasn't, he thought, he wasn't far off from it. He looked Pennywise right into his eyes and said, "Why? Why did you kill my son?"  
Pennywise laughed and looked back at Mr. Sinclair and said, " I did it just to watch him squirm. I did it just to watch him writhe in pain. I did it so I could hear the little brat scream!"  
Mr. Sinclair picked up a torch and said, " You can rot in hell with all of Lucifer's other servants and I'll make sure you get there." He picked the torch up and lit the hay on the ground and the bails that surrounded Pennywise. He called out for the others to guard the windows and for Mr. Johanson to bring him some gunpowder. The man ran off into the night.   
Pennywise, knowing that he was at an end, decided to curse the town. He stood up on the top floor and shouted, " You kill me tonight and grant you are rid of me for now but I say unto all of you present that one day I will come back for the soul's of your ancestor's. I will come back for their blood and every victim I claim will be that of a child and those children will be helpless because only they will see me. Their parents will go under my spell and completely ignore their children's pleas for help. Then, I will attack and kill all of your offspring's own as I did to the one I slaughtered tonight. So you want me rid off. Go ahead, but I swear on that child's blood that I will haunt the town of Derry as long as there is life in the world."   
Then the clown took a rope and tied it around a beam of the barn roof. He looked down at the people in awe and in terror of him and he said, " I will not be sent to Satan by the likes of you...I would rather send myself to my waiting place, for as I said before my soul shall never rest, though I may be banished away I will return.", then the clown put his neck in a noose he had made with the rope, " I will return but now it is time for my last great act. I will jump off this balcony and levitate in the air by aid of this rope. Then I will go out in a bang!" The clown jumped off the balcony hanging himself. His gloved hand went limp and gunpowder sprinkled down into the flames. The fire exploded out of the windows and barn door setting people on fire. At that time Johanson arrived and the gunpowder in his hand made him and the people around him burst into flames. The entire population of Derry was on fire, except for three families. They were out of town buying supplies from a larger town up North. The bodies burned slowly. First, the flesh melted from the body and then the body barbecued in the flames and then the skull burned into ashes. By the next morning nothing was left on the site except for burnt ground and a white glove with slightly scarred edges.  



End file.
